


Did You Imagine It

by regulsh



Category: Actor RPF, Rocketman (2019) RPF
Genre: Blow Jobs, Feelings, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Phone Sex, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sad feelings, dudes in gym shorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-01-16 18:15:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21275576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regulsh/pseuds/regulsh
Summary: He can’t get a good grasp on anything. ::Or, the grind, and all that comes with it.





	1. Chapter 1

Right now, most days are the same once Taron manages to haul himself out of bed at a reasonable hour. Gym. Coffee. Shower. Emails or phone calls or whatever. Prepares to do it again, different but the same, that night. More conversations and promo over something that feels farther and farther away now, talking about himself like he's a stranger. Refracted over and over again each day until the whole thing looks like something else, becomes something else, oddly distant from his own memory of it.

Showering helped to relax him some, hot water sluicing off his unsteady limbs, but he’s regretting the coffee now. There is a gorgeous massive skylight in the bathroom where he's staying, gleaming midday light off the glossy white tile, but all at once it annoys him, feeling overstimulated and sensitive to the glare. He towels off hastily, padding from the bathroom to the bedroom, feeling the caffeine jitters, the ghost of an endorphin high from his workout, some scooped-out exhaustion that has nothing to do with the gym.

He yanks on a pair of clean mesh gym shorts from the floor, chucks his towel in the corner of the bedroom, nobody here to tsk at him if he does. Pulls the cord to lower the blinds, sending them clattering against the glass, yanks the curtain shut. Slaps the wall to turn off the overhead light. The mattress complains as he flops down onto it, bouncing on his back. He blinks for a moment to let his sun-spotty eyes adjust to the darkness.

Taron rubs a hand over his chest, attempting to physically alleviate the sore feeling there. How long has it been like this? He just... needs a nap, or a quick smoke, or both, some sort of big flat reset button he could press that would satisfy and smooth down everything in him.

His phone buzzes— he thinks for a moment it’s a bizarre muscle cramp under his hip but it’s his phone he lay on top of, _idiot_, and fishes it out from underneath him.

** _saw. loved. legend xx_**

It’s a text from Richard, and attached is a link to a Hollywood Reporter article, and he nearly drops his phone.

_still reeling, loved it_ he types back immediately.

Then, _you were missed x_

A fair exchange, friendly. But his fingers keep moving, eyes screwed up against the bright screen in his dark room.

_where are you now?_

** _spirited away for filming _ **

** _went out w people, at a shit bar now. didn’t know they had shit bars like this here. hiding in the loo_**

_there are shit bars everywhere_

** _can’t complain, had a kip on the beach earlier_ **

** _ sand everywhere. horror_**

Taron pictures it, tiny shorts and his long pale legs in the fine sand, Richard dozing with a goofy slack face, and grins wickedly.

_boo fucking hoo _

_wash well. tits pits and naughty bits luv_

** _all my bits are naughty_**

He hums at that, taps his phone on his chest.

_too true_

He doesn't quite know how to parse that, or any of this. Maybe there’s a slight shimmer underneath his words, like when— they’d—

Spend all day on set, winding each other up, teasing horrendously, then later strategically unwinding by shoving up against each other any way they could, desperate.

He claps the phone to his bare chest, smothering the screen. Or maybe it’s totally invented, all in his head. They haven’t had a proper conversation in at least two weeks, and hadn’t— done anything, or seen each other, in much longer than that. He’s out of practice. Not that it was ever difficult between them.

And really, it usually doesn’t take much to get him going. But even now, especially now, the snatches of memories in the pinprick-cool room have him burrowing back into the sheets. (The one time he had trailed his hand down Richard’s leg, thought himself quite the tart, and paid dearly when Richard surprised him later that day in a barely-private corner by coming up behind him, crowding him, wide hands sliding around his hips hard, sucking a mark on his neck with his slick mouth; it still sets him alight, months later.)

His idle hand rests over his crotch, seconds away from signing off with a quick _well have fun x_ and pulling out his laptop when his phone buzzes again, twice.

** _did alright, cleaned up well enough for this place_**

And following it is a picture, a blurry selfie of Richard making a scrunched face in a bathroom mirror, a row of stall doors behind him. He taps it open with one hand, the other a pleasant still weight in his lap, not inclined to move it. He can make out rude scribbles fanning out from the edge of the mirror, peeling papers plastered on every wall. There's multi-colored lights strung thick on the ceiling, every crap bar’s excuse for interior design. His face is cast in lime, fuchsia, deep blue shadows, familiar and strange. He looks like exactly what Taron wants.

_ looking good. handsome boy. have one for me_

** _what are you up to_**

He thinks about sending a selfie back but considers the state he’s in, wet and huddled in the dark, which is not a good look. Getting up to turn on the light to take a cheesy selfie for proof of life feels immensely stupid too, and his endless spinning wheels cause him to spit out something close to the truth before he can think about it too much.

_lying in bed thinking bout you darling_

He hopes Richard reads it as the joke it is, then desperately wishes he doesn’t. His mind goes back and forth like a coin flipping in the air, in the agonizing dot-dot-dot seconds before Richard’s reply.

** _been there_**

He exhales, relaxes his head back on the pillow.

_ ** thinking about you ** _

_ **not me thinking about me ** _

_ **obvs**_

He taps out _freak_ and whooshes it off, fond, at the same time as **_thinking about your mouth on me_** pings into the thread.

Panic leaps into his throat at the two messages colliding, along with a bold zing of arousal, no longer subterranean, Richard _thinking_ about him, them, and the combined adrenaline flurries his fingers on the keyboard.

_fuck wasn’t saying _

_yes me too _

_remebr blowing u the middle of the day once, coudnf wait _

_so hard and good_

_ i remebmer _

_you taste so good_

He catches his breath. Considers the very real possibility that he may have overcorrected, slightly.

One interminable heartbeat, then—

** _yes_**

He’d give anything for fucking _anything_ from him, christ.

** _call me _ **

** _?_**

Shit.

The fabric of his shorts is slippery under his hands, over his dick, half hard. He can’t get a good grasp on anything.

He calls him.

Richard picks up after only a moment and Taron immediately clicks in to where he is, lets his eyes slip closed: the thump of music from the bar in the background, an amused hum in his ear, just his warm breath and presence. He melts into the bed, a wash of contentment at this barest thread of connection, before Richard even says a word.

“The Hollywood life so dull you had to turn to me for entertainment, is it?” No preamble, just sliding immediately into a smiling, teasing tone for him.

“Dreadful. Just had to keep myself occupied somehow, and my mind keeps running round to you.” Taron hesitates to say it, out loud. “Your mouth. Can’t stop thinking about it.”

He feels weirdly, keenly award of the blood sliding through his veins, awake and thrumming. He adjusts his phone in the crook of his shoulder with one hand, uses the other to palm over himself, firm.

“Is that true,” Richard says. It barely has the inflection of a question.

“Yes.” A sigh, no hesitation. His breath is loud and heavy down the line, cracked open now.

Richard notes it. “You’re—?”

Something stupid possesses him, “Oh no, decided to go for a jog.”

He’s not even properly touching himself, just grasping the slick mesh around his cock where it’s tenting his shorts obscenely, feeling it slip around him as he luxuriates in the sound of Richard’s chuckle, several time zones away.

“Wish I— oh _shit_,” he hears Richard swear, and then the shuffle and slam of a door, the fumbling of a latch; Taron realizes he’s shut himself in a stall.

He hears a burst of laughter and other loud voices in the background and understands, and _oh_, that makes him think, his brain floating away from himself. Imagines the two of them crammed in a tiny stall, stifling whispers and giggles as drunk bar goers stumble just outside the thin door, his hand down Taron’s pants. Or Taron's hand down _his_ pants. Or Taron’s mouth wet around his delicious hard dick, thick and lovely, Richard biting the spare loo roll to keep quiet. Or them sat on the lid of the toilet, Richard deep and unmoving in him, stuffing his fingers in his mouth as he writhes and begs and twists his hands in his hair— 

A flood of images assaults him, each one less feasible and realistic than the last, sliding, overlapping. Everything dissolving into pink and green light and Richard there, all around him, in him, melted into the grit of the floor and the muffled pound of the music and the warm weight of his tongue in his mouth instead of here in his neat dark tiny bedroom, alone. He can almost feel it, if he squeezes his eyes tight enough to make colors burst behind them.

“Want it. Tell me,” he gasps. Hand shoved down his shorts now, the elastic rubbing against his wrist, fretting wetly at his leaking head.

Taron hears Richard shift and pant, unsure and speechless how he gets sometimes. Then a groan, and his breath is all of a sudden muffled. Taron can visualize his head in the crook of his own elbow, leaning flat against the wall, maybe trying not to be heard by the people just outside.

“_Fuck_, I’m hard,” he hears, a gritted admission. Taron’s mouth falls open around a grin.

“Yes, fuck, _yes_,” he breathes, channeling all his want down the sweaty clutch of his phone against his ear. Maybe Richard is flush against the wall, rubbing there, his fuck-expensive jacket catching against the tattered flyers. He racks his brain for where his headphones might be to free his other hand, or thinks about rummaging in the nightstand for his good lube at the back of the drawer, but can’t bring himself to. Wants to stay perfectly suspended in the moment, afraid that if he makes a wrong move, moves at all beyond the warm indent in his mattress, the connection will snap. Besides, he doesn’t really want those things, he wants—

For some reason. He pauses to think, tracing one finger on the inside of his thigh. For some reason, he imagines Richard’s not just going for it, touching himself like he is right now, imagines he’s holding back. Thinks he’s waiting for his words to do something, and that thrills him to no end, and it’s that thought that takes the question he was going to ask, _are you—?_, and shapes it into a command. “Touch yourself.”

A hot, empty exhale down the line. “Taron,” he groans, and he hears shifting of fabric. Then, with some meaning or emotion he can’t place in one short word, “_you_—“

Taron speaks. “That time we had ten minutes before we had to be back on set, remember, you dragged me into your trailer and jerked me off, you squeezed me so hard, and I mangled your zipper trying to blow you faster. Needed you to come for me.”

He hears Richard suck in a breath between his teeth. “Want that, shit, T. Love you to open for it.”

Taron retrieves his palm from inside his shorts and licks at it, sloppy and lewd, nobody can see. But he thinks he hears a small inhale in his ear at the wet obvious sound, and oh, he can hear him, he’s listening to him as his cock twitches in his hand.

He recalls the thin carpet in the trailer did nothing for him, hurt like a bitch when he sank down to his knees. His mouth drops open alone, wet, with the memory of it.

Wishes again he was there in that shitty bar bathroom, he’d mind the dirty floor even less, just wants Richard’s pale throat tipped back in the colored lights.

And he hears a sharp whine from Richard—

And then no, he envisions, he’s here in LA, right now, creaking onto the mattress as he kneels and covers his body and his mouth with his—

And Richard’s in his ear, still talking, _your mouth so tight around me, feels so good, yes_. Richard runs out of words and stops there, falling silent, just heavy breaths, but Taron’s too far gone already anyway. Pulled away, strung into several different fantasies, he’s coming, spurting and soaking the sleek fabric around himself, jerking frantically into the slippery feeling.

Taron’s thighs are still twitching in the wake of it and he’s laughing, faintly. “God, why’d you _stop_,” he whines, unashamed. “How’d you like it if I left you on the edge?”

Hears his shattered gasp down the line, still fraught, and a door swings open in his mind. “You would like it. Wouldn’t you,” he prods, Richard near sobbing as he squeezes around himself, odd sparks shooting through him with the motion. “Me sucking you down, just like you like. I’d sit back, again and again, leave you alone, fuck you, leave you gagging for it. Maybe you can’t help yourself and I get you right there, push your hands away, and I don’t help you, and you come— all on me— miserable—”

A muffle, and a clatter, and he hears Richard cry into his arm. It feels like he's swallowed something hot, keen buzzing and prickling at every seam of his skin. He smooths his hand up his belly, relishes it.

Asks the obvious. “Did you—“

“Yes. Fuck, on the wall some.” Taron lifts himself with a hand, liberating himself from the sweaty dip in the mattress. He rolls his head onto the pillow on his side, mashing his phone between it and his ear, listens to Richard’s breathing slowly even out. “Might be an improvement.”

“Oh, definitely. Adorned with the spunk of Richard Madden. They’ll scrape it and sell it off.”

“Shut it,” Richard issues, sending a shiver of glee through Taron. He hears a jingle and a tearing noise, probably wiping away the evidence with a fistful of thin toilet paper. Taron's hand is still wet, draped over his side. “End of the month I’m in LA,” Richard says, voice contained and even.

Heart low in his stomach, his senses returning to normal. “Nah. Back in London then.”

In his dark room. He closes his eyes, he opens his eyes. He can’t tell the difference.

Richard, too, is quiet in his ear. His chest caves in, unbearable.

“We’ll have to keep up over the phone, then.” The slightest silliest air in his voice to cover an unspoken pact, a promise, a quicksilver lining that Taron accepts with a loose smile, no other option, really.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS SAD DO NOT READ

It’s the middle of the night. A slow swim towards consciousness, the bedside clock digits small and unblinking next to him: 11:29 PM. It comes to him in waves, like waking up in reverse: it’s the middle of the night, he’s in his hotel room, the only way he’s awake to know any of this is because of the repetitive buzzing of his phone wedged under his pillow.

Taron fumbles it out, squints at the screen: someone’s calling him, just the letters _RM_ listed as the name. It takes him a minute, remembers he had taken someone’s advice and done the wanky famous person thing of changing some of his contacts to anonymous initials. He’d done it after collecting several new numbers over the past few months (some of whom he still can’t believe, the people _wanting_ to talk to _him_), but this one just brings a flood of warmth to his chest. Richard.

It’s the middle of the night, but certainly not that late, especially for New York. Taron had come back as early as he could manage, desperate for some sleep where he could grab it, and with turndown service and Egyptian cotton, no less. But it’s much later where Richard is, the wee hours. He drags his sleep-clumsy fingers across the screen and lifts it to his ear.

“_Hellooo_,” Richard says, slightly singsongy. His voice is deep and slurred, and Taron cracks a smile into the pillow.

Drunk, his Richard. But Taron’s drunk too, tonight, in a good way.

Not like before, rounds of thick lagers and burning shots to distract himself.

No, recently, he had spent a blissful weekend in a blur of warm familiar embraces that had blessedly wiped his slate clean. He vaguely remembers getting a well-wishing text from Richard at the time, had leaned against the wall amidst the revelry, woozy and warm, had sent back an all-caps response and an embarrassment of emojis.

But tonight it was Veuve, another event and one helpful glass too many, floated back to the hotel on loose tipsy feet, slipped into cool sheets.

“How’re you, superstar?” he greets him, hoarse from talking all night and being woken up but still flush with goodwill.

But he hears nothing back. There’s silence at the other end of the line, an audibly held breath, and his gentle humor dissipates, fizzes away like so many champagne bubbles. Worry ebbs in to fill its place when he hears Richard finally speak, halting.

“—Hi. You. No, it’s, um. S’not. Sorry, I’ll let you—”

“How’s things?” Curious. Cautious.

“Oh, everything’s great. Right?” The barest hint of mania under his words. Taron knows. “Everything’s fine.”

“Mmm. Whazzit. Talk to me.” He keeps his tone casual. Remembers so well the times that Richard had called him, night after night, when he’d been bleary and rambling, dislodging thoughts while Richard listened and hummed. He can do the same for him, now.

But it’s tough, lurching between sleep and lucidity, gripped with pangs of alertness in the urge to stay awake. And Richard’s fairly rambling anyway, tongue loosened by several Spanish beers, he reckons. His eyelids are so heavy; they keep betraying him and slipping closed. He finally catches on to the very end of what Richard’s saying.

“And d’you— did we ever—? Did I ever. Hurt you,” Richard finishes. A plain note of desperation in his voice.

“No.” Taron is confused. Still getting with it, the pieces slowly clicking into place.

More urgently, now, “No, Dickie. I—”

“I just dunno why.”

Taron stares into the darkness, silently urging him to keep talking. Almost speaks, before Richard says—

“Why, s’all. Everyone. Gone.”

Taron pauses, held, at the top of a breath.

The absolute silence sits for a few heartbeats before Taron so slowly exhales, slow enough for Richard to hear him but not so loud as to spook him. Gently slides into the silence, reminds him. “I’m here.”

It is precise, the urge to place a hand on Richard’s neck. Taron even cups his hand slightly on his chest, where it lays.

“No, you’re not.” Small and pathetic, his response, he nearly misses it. It breaks him.

“Wish I was. Love you, Dickie.” Only honest, for him. He pulls the duvet tighter to his chest.

Fuck, and maybe it was the exact wrong thing to say. Maybe it was the exact right thing to say. “Mate, I can’t— I want—”

“What,” Taron goads. “Anything. What d’you want.” Knowing that when Richard’s drunk he only needs the slightest prodding to open up. Thought him an impenetrable bell-end until they had drinks after that first day and before long he was spilling his anxieties, Taron gripping his forearm tight with wide, understanding eyes.

“Want you, put your mouth on me and poke my bum and tell me to get it together,” Richard finally says, aghast.

“I would. I will.”

“But you don’t— you don’t want—”

“I do.” Cracked open. “I do—”

“—like I want, it’s just— when we can— I just wanna be able to—”

They’re both talking past each other, over each other. It’s not really about him, this call, Taron realizes, with equal low rushes of relief and something else, something bitter. But the realization lends him a small amount of freedom, enough to get his mouth running.

He speaks, uselessly. “It’ll all be alright, yeah? You’re just alone right now, at this second, right? It’ll pass. You have good people there. But for now, I get it, I’ve been there, it’s—”

“I want you,” he hears Richard groan, but— no, he hears Richard _groan_, hears how his tone of voice has changed, slipped even lower, and—

It’s honestly a cool trickle down his back, a moment of real uncertainty pinning him into place before he takes a deep breath.

“Yeah? Want that too. Tell me.” After all Richard’s done, for him. He wants to do this, can do this at least, for him. He lets his heavy eyelids close, tips his head back on the plump pillow, waits, his brain still too drowsy and unsure to take the first step.

But there’s only silence on the line— well, not silence. Deep breaths and unashamed moans that Taron’s never heard the likes of from Richard. Moans and half-started sentences and his own name, sometimes. He’s blushing wildly, he can feel his cheeks burning, no one there to witness it. He feels like a true voyeur, or whatever the French fucking equivalent is for only being able to hear someone, dropped into this moment with little warning.

One hand is still splayed on his chest, the other one on his phone to his ear, but he can feel himself getting hard, legs spreading underneath the duvet, tilts his hips into it against his better judgement. Like any judgement fucking figures into this. Richard _shouts_ at one point and his dick twitches, hard.

Says again, dreamlike, “Tell me.”

“You on top of me.” Taron presses the phone tighter to his ear, whispers _yes, yes_, a low thrum of encouragement. “You just— jerk me off, pin my arms down, scratch me up— want to feel you.”

Taron digs his nails into his own chest. “Love that, yes,” he responds, but he’s steamrolled again, Richard barely stopping.

“Touch me, your hands so good, maybe— rub against me, get up inside me.”

They had never but Taron doesn’t know if Richard knows that right now. And regardless, Taron thrills at hearing it, a new territory.

“Wanna be in you,” Taron murmurs, not missing a beat. “So good for it, so good for me, perfect. So hard just thinking about it.”

And he is, fully hard and squirming in the sheets now, dialed up with each noise and confession he hears from Richard. It’s all real, everything Taron’s saying, but something feels so unreal about it, can’t seem to catch up to where Richard is.

And Richard is so spun out and explicit in a way that he never normally is. “Want your cock,” Richard breathes, and Taron can’t fucking handle that. Certain he’s still drunk, or dreaming.

“Yeah?” Moronic. So turned on, so suddenly, he can’t think straight.

“You’re always so—”

Taron would pay one million dollars, murder a stranger, to hear the end of that sentence. But it’s bitten off, replaced by more sighs and urgent breaths from Richard.

"So gorgeous, wanna see you, wanna get my hands on you," Taron murmurs, the ache physical. 

“Do you—?” Richard pleads.

For the first time on the call, in their friendship, he knows exactly what Richard needs, not just what he can offer.

“I want to see you, want you here,” Taron says low, true, and he hears Richard gasp high and choke and come, a needle stuck through his ear into his brain.

And maybe it’s that, the edge of a headache creeping in now, the sugary buzz of the champagne finally slipping away.

He’s still unbelievably hard but hadn’t given a single thought to it, hadn’t even considered bringing a hand to his dick. He’s so behind, feels like he just became reasonably alert and plugged in to the moment, and now it’s over. Richard spilled filthy words into his ear and moaned his name and came over his fist and is breathing shallowly on the other end of the phone and Taron’s just now fully awake.

“T,” he hears. A satisfied sigh. He almost lets himself relax. Almost twitches his hand downward.

Then. Abruptly sober, Richard’s voice comes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry—”

His hand freezes.

It shouldn’t be like this. None of it.

He rolls his head to the side, looks at the clock. 11:38 PM. Nine minutes, for all of this to happen. What— did just happen—

“Love you mate,” Taron says, painful, but already the line is dead.


	3. Chapter 3

_ That might have been it_, he thinks, stalking through the lobby. 

This might be it, he was told. One last glitzy screening and one last lavish after party to glad-hand one last round of folks. Taron was informed it’s their final run at this thing and they’re pulling out all the stops. Was informed even later, hours before the event, getting ready, that Richard was in town and scheduled to attend, and Taron tried not to let his fingers fumble on his buttons too badly.

He had been hoping to see him, just— to talk. Radio silence between them since they last spoke, that one late night ages ago, apart from a few bland impersonal texts. Taron was unsure exactly where Richard was at. Where they stood. 

But he found out when he approached Richard at the after party and saw his face light up from far away. Answered with his own brilliant smile, had to remind himself to keep his feet moving. Richard clapped a broad hand over his back. Bright. Excited. Nothing more. Taron rubbed at the hem of his suit jacket sleeve when they parted, but absent any cue from Richard, he let his hand fall away.

Richard had been nothing but kind and congratulatory and level-headed and they exchanged maybe three sentences before Taron was yanked away to meet someone else.

But once he finally extricated himself near the end of the night, Taron couldn’t find him. Asked around and was told Richard had slipped out early, citing some obligation. Couldn’t catch him before he left.

Taron had headed back to his hotel shortly after, made his excuses. No reason to stick around.

He talks to the girl at the desk briefly, jabs the elevator button. His professional obligation is done with, it had all gone over extremely well, he should be happy.

And he is, but he also feels— pent up, unsatisfied. He reaches his room, kicking off his hard shoes on the soft carpet. Unclips his cufflinks and rattles them onto the dresser, unleashes his bow tie from his neck, shucks off his suit jacket.

He crawls onto the bed, face down, exhales into the pillow for a moment.

No—

He remembers one moment, in the middle of the night. His eyes unerringly found Richard across the room, who held his gaze for two beats longer than a casual glance. Taron had exhaled, turned his body to face him—

But he blinked and it passed, or was never there, Richard turned away laughing at someone else.

And Taron got pulled into another conversation shortly anyhow, people slapping his back and shaking his hand, all smiles, heaping compliments.

He shoves his hips aimlessly into the mattress, once, twice. He just feels _ good_, still awash with praise.

He’ll only take what he’s given, but he wants _ so much_— 

Well. It had all been a rip roaring success by any measure, and he deserves a bit of self-congratulation, doesn’t he?

He worms a hand in between himself and the mattress, shoving against it more intently. It’s been a long time since he’s gotten laid properly; he pictures someone under him as he thrusts against his hand and tries not to let himself feel too horrifically pitiful about that.

Picking his head up he heaves a breath, twists around and over on the bed to unbuckle his pants. Shoves a hand in, tries to chase the buoyed feeling he had just moments ago. Where was that clarity of emotion he had— did he ever have it— he can’t gather himself together enough to get there properly—

His cell phone rings, piercing the air.

He groans once, sharp and annoyed. Can’t have anything tonight, apparently. He swipes it from the nightstand to his ear, hoping to dispense with whatever business it is quickly so he can get back to... whatever.

“Hi, yes?”

“Hello Cinderella,” Richard says.

His hands go numb and empty-feeling. Richard. On the phone. Calling him. “What?” he manages.

“Y’know, Cinderella, leaving the ball...” Richard trails off. Taron can hear traffic in the background; he’s on the street, somewhere.

Taron squints at the ceiling. “Hi. _ You _ left.” Not unkind, just too genuinely confused to follow the comparison.

“Oh.” Richard is silent for just a beat too long before smiling, he can _ hear _ it, fuck him. “Guess that makes you Prince Charming.”

“Oh yeah, that makes sense.” Taron snorts.

“You don’t think?” Hates his touch-too-earnest tone.

“Says the one who got the bloody job,” Taron retorts, and Richard chuckles generously. He softens, despite himself, at hearing him laugh. Making him laugh.

“Didn’t get to see you really,” Taron tosses out. “Not for lack of trying."

Richard sighs. “Sorry, mate—“ He rambles on about a friend’s stupid party he had to go to, citing logistics; traffic, clothes. Taron slowly lets the rest of his irritation dribble away. 

Grips his hand around himself more purposefully, again. 

His voice is a warm, familiar thing.

And hey, Richard fucked off somewhere, whatever, no reason for him to keep spoiling his fun. He can keep touching himself with Richard on the line, maybe— maybe see how long he can last while holding a conversation, if he can make himself come without Richard noticing. Or maybe he’ll see how far he can take it, prod Richard to steer him along, instruct him on what to do. 

Maybe it can only— maybe it works best, keeping it this way. His hand starts moving again, slow and easy now, something clicked into place.

“You looked so good tonight,” he confesses, a touch breathy.

“You looked a right mess.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Taron laughs, shocked. “Mr. Armani would beg to differ.”

“Mr. Armani would throttle you for having your bow tie crooked all night.”

Dammit. “You could’ve told me, you could’ve fixed it,” he whines, then immediately retracts it upon imagining them in the mad throng of people, Richard studious and focused on him, Taron holding still under his hands, his warm fingers nudging against his neck. Taron would’ve made a scene.

“Do I have to do everything,” Richard sighs, fake-affronted. 

Taron murmurs at him. “No. Love to see you try, though.”

He’s laying it on thick. They’re not talking about _ anything_, really. But it feels like they’re standing on an iceberg, some huge, unstable thing looming beneath them, could topple over at any moment. And Taron’s still getting into it, flush with the heat of seeing him earlier, of this now-familiar circumstance, catching the barest edge of uncertainty and using it to feed into it. 

He strokes himself faster, lets out an unmistakable sigh. Doubles down on it, floats out to Richard on a breath, “Please.”

It’s so clear, he can picture Richard’s raised eyebrow, his caught-open half-grin. “Have I caught you at a bad time,” Richard drawls.

“A good time,” Taron revises. He traces over his head, toes curling, it cuts his breath short.

He hears nothing back, just the blare of car horns in the background. And shit, maybe he totally miscalculated. Drenched in sheer horror for one blinding second, until—

A low, amused hum from Richard. “You can’t get enough, can you.” 

Taron’s hips twist at that, mouth breaking into a smile.

“Gosh, and why d’you think that is,” he responds. “Nothing to do with certain handsome men telling me, in great detail, exactly how they want me.” His legs spread wider on the bed.

“Who are they,” Richard mock-demands. “I’ll send the dogs after them.”

“Only you,” Taron affirms, irrepressibly fond. His nail catches under his head; he gasps. “_You_—“

“Early night for you, then? Just there in your bed, having a good time.” Richard’s voice has drawn out low. “I was really hoping to catch up.”

“I left a key,” Taron blurts out, then blushes. “I mean, I didn’t think, but I— d’you— hey, what’s—?“

Richard cuts through his awful mangled overture. “I’m close. There in ten.” 

A wave spreads out from Taron’s chest, soothing him and sparking his nerves alight at the same time.

“Stay on the phone?” he asks. It’s probably unwise. But he wants it.

“I can— try. I can. Yeah.”

Richard is coming over, he feels it like a meteor approaching, hurtling towards him. Taron mumbles and sighs through it all, all the things he wants to do, unspooling a long ribbon down the phone, stroking himself all the while. Richard sometimes interjects with praise or brief words but he’s still in public, after all. He’s silent for long stretches, or maybe muting his line, Taron can’t tell. 

He thinks Richard’s in a car for a bit, his voice becoming decidedly neutral and casual, but he stays on, wants to keep to his word, let Taron know he’s there. Richard says so politely _ Yes that sounds great _ when Taron rhapsodizes about spending hours sucking him down. Only a mild _ Oh is that so? _ when Taron tells him when they were fooling around on set he’d wake up gasping and hard in his sheets, night after night, Richard on his mind.

And it’s almost as good as the real thing, knowing that Richard is listening to him and can’t do anything about it. Can’t react how he’d like, can’t say anything, can’t touch himself, aching and trapped while Taron writhes, pulls at himself with total abandon, sinking into the feeling.

He doesn’t know how long he stays talking, eyes screwed shut and mouth running free, floating along the high. No real urgency or goal, just a winding monologue of his late night thoughts, Richard’s occasional contributions the only thing tethering him to reality.

But as the minutes tick on he becomes more desperate, his head getting slick, blood pounding in his ears. He rubs over his head and down the length of him, back arching off the bed, shivers with it, whines into the phone.

“I’m _ so hard_, so fucking hard, just— need you, fuck— _ touch me_—"

“Jesus,” he hears breathed down the line, but it’s echoed in real time too, and his eyes snap open.

Richard is there. Leaning in the entryway, one long line, dark jeans and jacket and hair and bright eyes, phone at his ear. And _ fuck _ he looks good, Taron swears he feels his pupils dilate in real time at the sight of him. His adrenaline is kicked up, heart hammering both from the surprise and just the sheer fact of his presence. He didn’t even hear him come in.

And he’s caught with his hand shoved down his crisp slacks, starched shirt askew, sweaty and panting in his bed. Richard leans cool and casual and unruffled against the wall. Whatever thin fantasy he was riding immediately evaporates with the reality of him there, in his room.

Richard draws the phone away from his ear. Hangs up the call, still gazing at him.

“You’re a true menace. Had to pretend I was on an important call at the front desk, didn’t I, grabbed the key and ran away from the girl before I scared her.”

Taron shifts his head on the pillow. “So you’re saying this wasn’t an important call?” Glib. Hand still on his cock, phone still pressed to his ear.

Richard responds by bringing a hand down to rub over his jeans, dragging his eyes over him once more, and he goes sort of shuddery and weak, any false bravado gone.

He hasn’t moved, stuck in place since Richard appeared; even now as Richard crosses the room and climbs over him on the bed he’s helpless, just watches him approach. Delicate as a surgeon, Richard slips his hand down into his fly, replaces Taron’s hand with his own, the brief slide of both their hands together over his cock making him go hot all over, making him twitch. Richard plucks the phone out and away from his ear, knocks his hand away, unpicks every one of his limbs and seals his mouth over his, finally, finally.

He surges up into the kiss, into Richard’s hand on him, moans at the long press of his body down his. Richard’s hand grips tight but useless around him, distracted by reacquainting their mouths, moving open and generous against each other. Taron doesn’t even mind. He clutches at him greedily, interrupts him to peel him out of his jacket so he can stick his hands under his t-shirt, against his warm back, sheer relief coating everything.

Whatever previous tension was winding him up has reset, slackened as they kiss, and kiss, and kiss. And it’s strange; he thought they’d fall on each other ravenous after so much talk but it’s a different kind of hunger, starved for each other. Whatever they’d whispered to each other on the phone was heightened, a fantasy; this reality, his belt buckle digging into his side and Richard’s fucking shoes on his bed, wins out every time. Goddammit. Goddammit, it’s good to see him.

“You too,” Richard breathes across his mouth. He didn’t realize he had spoken. 

Richard rears back to spread his palms broad across his chest, flattening him back when he tries to chase his retreating mouth. Taron would huff but he likes Richard’s solid hands splayed over him, a pleasant weight holding him down. 

Slow, firm, Richard skims his hands down the length of his arms. Stretches them out wide, one long press into the cool duvet around them. Circles his hands gentle but solid around his wrists. Taron tilts his head up, pinned, as Richard feasts on his mouth, bites at his lower lip with nips of his teeth, soothes it with long lush passes of his tongue. 

His fingers flex with a deep caress of Richard’s tongue against his, offered up to him. “Gorgeous thing,” he hears Richard rumble against his lips, and his stomach does a somersault worthy of the Olympics.

And Richard has apparently remembered they’re pressed together just so, spread over him; he grinds down, dragging his crotch against him slowly and deliberately. Taron can feel so precisely where he’s hard against him. He groans, ruined with it.

Richard finally plucks his mouth away, presses closed-mouth kisses to each of his fluttering eyelids, a strange sort of gesture that makes him go wobbly nonetheless.

“How’re you, then. Long time no see.” 

They were dressed to the nines exchanging pleasantries two hours ago. Taron knows what he means.

“Fantastic,” Taron sighs.

But Taron’s fingers are twitchy against him, still some excitement pulsing under everything. He frees himself and runs a hand long down Richard’s back who arches into it like a cat. He’s slowly remembering what Richard likes, how he likes to be touched.

Taron scrambles to sit up, Richard perched in his lap. Takes a minute to smooth Richard’s hair back where it’s fallen in his face, eyes soft, then threads that same hand up the back of his hair and uses it to tilt his head. Richard makes a shameless, high noise.

Taron ghosts his mouth down the column of his neck now exposed, tongue flashing out to wet his lips, a flicker of a thing that makes Richard inhale before reaching the base of his neck and sucking hard. He feels one of Richard’s hands settle on the back of his head, featherlight, cradling him.

Meanwhile his hands are already on the move, sliding away and down around Richard’s hips and grabbing his arse, heaving him down into his lap against him, again and again. He smooths his hands down the lengths of his thighs; then up under his shirt and searching, fanning wide over his back; and down again, a torturous circuit. Gets his hand on him over his pants just once, rubbing, and Richard slumps against him.

He does this for a while. God, he‘d do this for as long as he’d let him, just make him feel good, revel in his nose pressed to his neck and the feel of him, his back firm and silk-skinned. Under his tongue, his hands, he feels Richard’s gone relatively lax and finishes his ministrations. Unlatches his mouth and pulls back to see him, check in.

And Richard’s blissed out with dark heavy eyes that take a moment to focus on him. When he does, Taron squeezes tighter around his hips under the intensity of his stare.

“Oh my _ god_,” Richard groans as he leans in again, mouth fierce against his, but his fingers are gentle, tracing down his chest and slipping buttons open. He moves out of his lap, leaving Taron to peel off his shirt while Richard yanks off his bottoms and without another word sinks his mouth down around him.

He throws his head back at the incredible tight heat of his mouth, so deep so fast, then decides not to be so stupid as to deny himself the visual and looks down. Puts a hand in his hair, dumbstruck. 

“Fuck,” he breathes, and Richard answers by giving him a hard suck at his very head, sending his hips up against his will. He backs off, hisses out an apologetic breath, and Richard only grips his hips up again and sinks his mouth down further, smoothing his tongue along him luxuriously. 

“Like that,” Richard breathes a minute later when he pulls off with a pop. Taron doesn’t know if it’s a question or a statement, impossible to parse Richard’s hoarse, throaty voice, and he’s too busy using every single brain cell trying not to come anyway. Richard strokes him once, licks against his head, takes him in again with a groan. Taron flails out a hand to stop him, gasping.

“Y’can’t, I’m close— get up here—“

“You think you’re the only one,” Richard pants, traveling up his body again, rubbing against his naked thigh. “Fucking tease.” There’s no real heat behind it, but even so. Taron greets him with a fervent kiss (he tastes different, he shivers) and strips Richard out of his shirt and tips him over, presses him back into the pillows. Wants to give him more.

“Lovely,” Richard sighs, scratching his hands through his hair as Taron kisses over his torso. “So good to me.”

“Yeah, and you treat me just awful,” he mumbles, cock still throbbing from Richard’s mouth around him. Richard pinches his side. Taron gives him one last smacking kiss on his chest.

“Get it off,” he instructs and goes for his bag in the corner while Richard undresses. Hears the heavy thump of his shoes finally coming off and hitting the floor and rolls his eyes. The sight of him when he turns back, naked and flushed, he could weep. 

He throws the tube on the bed, wastes no time getting his hands on him again, gripping tight around his cheeks, his intention clear. “Can I,” he asks, tracing slow circles with his thumbs. “Wanted it ever since you said.”

And he thinks he sees Richard go a little pinker, remembering, shifting his eyes away. Taron wants to erase any of that from him, forever.

They arrange themselves; Richard tilts his hips up for him, Taron slides a slow wet finger against him. Taron ducks his forehead to Richard’s chest and goes by the feel of it, dials into the shifts and noises from him as clear as neon lights. Listens to Richard’s sighs and nudges of directions, feels his body open underneath him. It’s a heady thing, just the gorgeous roll of his body and his sure, sliding fingers feeling so good against each other, locked in a rhythm. His eyes close, submerged in it. Almost could be a dream if it weren’t for the salt-sharp smell of him, warm skin under his, his irrefutable presence.

“Good,” he asks, turning his cheek to lay against him, pressing a kiss up under his jaw. He feels it in the looseness in Richard’s every limb, his high keens for the past couple of minutes, but it doesn’t hurt to be sure.

“So good, just fucking perfect,” Richard moans through slack lips. “More.”

Taron is happy to oblige, but frankly he’s always been something of an overachiever. He slips him another finger, waits until he relaxes and writhes gently yet again, then quick and light shimmies down and licks against his cock on his stomach. It’s a bit of a clumsy thing to get his mouth around him with one hand wrapped around his leg, the other buried in him—

He feels a hand come down, bump up against his cheek; Richard’s hand slides around and fists the base of his dick, red and wet from Taron’s sloppy mouth. He holds his gaze, eyes so dark and so wide, as Richard feeds him his cock.

He sinks his mouth down willingly, teasing flicks of his tongue, sucks against him wet and leisurely, thick in his mouth. Richard’s hand moves up to rest over his head, the gentlest, lightest thing in the world, almost tentative, like he’s fragile. Taron only redoubles his efforts. Realizes his hand has gone still, crooks his fingers deeper and relishes the answering jolt from him.

And Richard’s hands can’t stop moving now, clutching against his back and then flitting away, scratching over his own chest, dragging down his own face. Eventually he gives up and throws an arm over his face, hips tilting helplessly, cock nudging at his throat when he does.

Richard moans something into his arm, muffled. Taron lifts his mouth off him, quite displeased to do so.

“Beg your pardon,” he says, eyebrow quirking.

“Fuck me,” Richard begs, scrubbing a hand over his eyes. Then, looks down at him. “Taron. Fuck me.”

Taron just stares. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Ok. “_Yeah_—“

He scrambles, they fumble to get situated but it’s alarming how quickly Taron finds himself leaned over him, pressing his cock to his hole. He’d totally ignored his dick in focusing on Richard, but it hits him all at once, fumbling a hand and a condom around himself enough to make him twitch, hard, shuddering. 

And all of a sudden he’s nervous, skinned raw, but in the same instant, almost like he could sense it, he feels Richard’s arms slide around him, mouth pressing wherever he can reach. He’s so encouraging. It’s agonizing, sliding into him. Richard’s legs are altogether too long, hiked up around him. Taron moans, _ oh god, how are you— _ and grabs at him, Richard tries to soothe him but he can’t stop running his hands over him, marveling, disbelieving. Gets a hand between them and wraps it around Richard’s cock, who chokes around a breath.

It’s shaky and so, so good. Taron wants it to be so good for him, ever-adjusting his pace, the tilt of his hips. Richard’s brows are drawn so tight, his inhales labored. Taron breathes against his jaw just a little frantic, but his voice against his ear is a litany of praise, _ just like that, oh fuck, just there, perfect, perfect_, and Taron trusts him. No more teasing, just the pure feeling of him around him and the utter unbelievable moment when Richard clutches him and arches his back and comes, and Taron can’t hold out a moment longer, lets himself flood with the feeling, stutters wildly against him and does the same.

He feels the sweat prickle on his skin, droops to his elbows on top of him, sapped. He barely finds the energy to lift his head up, nose and mouth dragging heavy along Richard’s cheek until he finds his mouth and doesn’t so much kiss him as drop his mouth onto his, weighted down against him. He startles when Richard clenches around him, strokes a hand down his side, like he had forgotten.

He withdraws, slow, aching, throwing a hand out to the nightstand before realizing he’s too far away to reach it and groans. He hops out of bed for just a moment, knocks the box of tissues to Richard, tidies himself and fusses to arrange the sheets before Richard tuts and pulls him down. Throws a hand over him, brooking no argument, tugging him against his front.

Taron splutters, thrashing a little. “Hey! Maybe I want to be the big spoon.”

“Hm, yeah, sure,” Richard indulges him, nuzzling close, and Taron is so, so weak against this. Being known.

“Can you stay,” Taron states.

He feels his answer in the form of his arm over his side, his slow relaxed breaths. “Yes.”

Fuck. Fuck. “Do we— should we— talk.”

“We’ve done quite a bit of that already, don’t you think,” Richard says, nosing against his neck, the flat of his tongue pressing against him once.

“No, but I mean.” Frowns, pinches the edge of the sheet. “About this.”

Richard‘s nose stops moving against him but he stays relaxed. Patient.

“I dunno, I think.” Taron takes a moment to breathe, take stock. “My head’s on a little straighter. After everything.” Even a couple hours ago that wouldn’t have been the case. But it is now.

Taron doesn’t want to speak for Richard, but nevermind that, he’s finding it hard enough to speak for himself. Unable to articulate what he wants. Afraid to nudge too far in any direction.

And he feels almost embarrassed about how unsure he was, his deep and twisting emotions, how much angst he waded through. Here, with Richard’s breath against his neck, it’s so simple. So plain. He just doesn’t know what to do about it. Where to go from here.

Richard lets out a low, thoughtful breath. “I’m happy. With how things are. Just this. You. Are you?”

Taron wriggles around to face him. “_Are _ you happy,” he asks, face tilted up to his.

Richard looks at him, sighs, looks at him longer. “Yes,” he says finally, heavy. “But I—“ He struggles for a moment. Taron waits. “But I don’t want to do anything wrong. Or hurt you, ever, at all.” His eyes are solemn. 

“You couldn’t,” Taron says. It’s true. “You wouldn’t. You’re not the type.”

Richard looks down. “You were upset. Tonight.”

Taron rolls his eyes. “I was pissy. I have a flair from the dramatic. I please quick, though.”

And he means to lighten the mood, but even after all this, Taron’s a little hesitant to reach for him to underline it.

It’s a moot point when Richard grabs his hand suddenly and curls his fingers against his palm. “Are _ you _ happy,” he asks, urgent. “Are you— do you want— this, any of this.” He’s searching over his face, looking anywhere but his eyes.

Taron will only take what he’s given. 

He didn’t want to overstep. Didn’t want to grab for more than he’s allowed, than is fair. Didn’t know, truly, how far this would carry them.

But he knows, now. Richard is mouthing at his knuckles, eyes falling closed briefly, supplicant.

Taron was afraid of taking too much. It seems Richard is afraid he doesn’t have enough to offer. 

But. He has to know. Doesn’t he know? This is all he wants. Nothing more, nothing less, than exactly this.

He steals his hand back and takes Richard’s with it, touches his mouth to the back of his hand. Not a kiss, no persuasion, just the long unmoving press of his lips.

“We can do whatever we want,” he mumbles against the thin skin there, scratching at the inside of his wrist. 

“Okay.” Richard apparently finds whatever he was looking for in his face, because his eyes close again and his brow smooths. Touches his lips to his cheek, draws a hand around him; Taron feels good, held. Safe. “Okay.”

“We’ll just take it as it comes,” Taron says, snuggled into his chest.

Richard is silent for a moment and Taron anticipates it before he says it, groans half-heartedly. “Oh you want that, do you?” Salacious, stupid; Taron bats at him with a weak hand.

“Yes,” he murmurs. “Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phone sex triptych, i sure didn’t see that coming when i first posted this! thank you for your kudos and comments, they really truly give me life. fin +


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